The Qliphoth - Vs the Gravemind
Lvl 14 Ms Fortune (139/140) Lvl 9 Goldlewis (88/90) Lvl 4
Grimm (11/40)
Midna, Junior, Rika & Edward’s
@DracoLunaris Blazermate, Sectonia & Roland’s
@Archmage MC Geralt, Zenkichi & Edelgard’s
@MULTI_MEDIA_MAN Ace Cadet, Pit, Primrose & Therion’s
@Yankee Juri’s
@Zoey Boey Roxas, Ganondorf, & Captain Falcon’s
@DoubleWord Count: 2993 (+3x2)
For a moment after the Gravemind’s prophetic cry reverberated through the arena, the twenty-one remaining Seekers stood by in battle-ready formation. Confronted by not one but three Consuls, with A in particular of especially ill repute, and dwarfed by the newly-assembled undead colossus that loomed at the Consuls’ back, they had precious little time to put together a strategy. Still, while some members of the team could be trusted to courageously push forward and take on these serious threats, others could be relied on to enact a speedy opening gambit.
Blazermate started out on overheal duty, of course, but keeping so many allies topped up would be a full-time job by itself, so once the action began her bonus HP would quickly decay. The same couldn’t be said for the support coming from Goldlewis, who hung back alongside Roxas, Midna, and Primrose to buff up the whole team. His buffs came out much faster than the ladies’ Sealticge-spread Dragon Dance, though. With a slam of his coffin he unleashed his Shield Burst, which enshrouded every Seeker in a thin energy barrier atop their health pools that would offer better protection to his flimsier friends than his heartier ones. Thanks to Hypereutectoid, it also gave them a short-lived damage boost. In return Goldlewis gratefully received Tailwind from Roxas. In a fight like this, speed would be everything.
Then it was off to the races. From his aerial vantage point Consul O broke the ice with a barrage of near-instant construction, enclosing and then terraforming a section of the arena with several Seekers inside. Overhead, Sectonia flew forth to unleash her magic and pent-up frustration, with Blazermate at her back to make her rampage one to remember, and Pit joined the fusillade with some light arrows. Therion and Grimm peeled off from the main group to avoid the enemies’ line of fire, while Roland and Nadia charged dead ahead, the former’s stoic frown and the latter’s upbeat smile indelible as their courage propelled them onward.
Tactical as ever, Goldlewis waited just a moment to engage. He quickly observed that Junior and Rika’s could not seem to land any attacks against O’s eyes, so given that plus the nascent hippopotamus exhibit, the veteran veered toward the right–toward Moebius A and his doppelgangers, who stood four abreast with a quietly menacing air about them. Goldlewis knew that there must be a lot more going on with A than met the eye, but the sight of Therion’s Junicorn spearing one of them reinforced his decision. His efforts would be better spent fighting someone he could actually hit. So as Sectonia’s deadly lightshow went off overhead, Goldlewis hustled toward the one-man quartet, keeping his eyes peeled for any interference on the way. Sure enough, the Gravemind took action to put a stop to Midna and Primrose’s buffs, and Goldlewis managed to dive forward just before the amalgamate’s mammoth tentacle slammed down. He landed with a roll and glanced up at the Gravemind, his breathing already heavy, but it had already shifted its focus toward Sectonia, so he set his sights on A once more.
Coffin at the ready, he rose and charged across the last hundred or so feet alongside Falcon and Ganondorf. A and his copies turned their way without acting, which made Goldlewis wary of a trap, but the big man couldn’t afford his foe too much respect just yet. Ganondorf acted first with a throw of his trident that whirled through the whole group, crackling with heavy voltage. Then the Warlord hurtled his weapon forward to impale an unlucky copy and reel him in, just in time to collide with Falcon’s fiery kick.
Goldlewis charged past the scuffle, trusting the Captain to put in the legwork while he went after the other three. Though softened up by the lightning and Moblin arrows, the other copies still weren’t counterattacking. Well, that suited Goldlewis just fine. “Hmph!” He grunted, gripping his coffin with one hand and its chain in the other. “Gimme an inch…!” He wheeled around, his strength and momentum brought to bear in a terrific Behemoth Typhoon. “And I’ll take a mile!” The massive flail smashed through the group. Goldlewis felt as much as he heard the bones breaking and the flesh yielding beneath his weapon’s weight, but even as the huge blow rearranged them, the copies did not falter. They simply stood, eyes dark, limbs bent strangely and cavities caved in, and a note of instinctive horror galvanized Goldlewis into action.
“Rrrrrrragh! Crumble!” He continued his onslaught with two more Behemoth Typhoons, his efforts focused down to just the two nearest copies. The final Typhoon was a mighty overhead, and when it slammed down onto his targets, it reduced them to a pinkish pulp of twisted flesh and armor. Revolted, Goldlewis stepped back, pulling his coffin free from the slurry. “Yuck! Well, whatever they are, at least these things go down easy!” Only then, though, did he notice that the pulp on his coffin was still quivering–still
blinking.
He looked back at the last A copy as he pulsed with an uncanny green light. “Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer,” he intoned as Time Heals All knit his bubbling flesh and armor back together, almost perfectly recreating the Consul’s form. At the same time, three more copies sprouted up from the ground. One of the new bodies seemed to fluctuate, however, as if unable to hold itself together, and after a moment it split apart in
horrific fashion Two half-heads crowned a mass of pink flesh and beady black eyes that could no longer sustain the illusion. Goldlewis gaped, aghast at the awful sight. “You think to strike me down?” the four chorused, the Imperfect Copy’s voice alarmingly distorted. “Foolish scion…we are the same!”
For a woeful second, the four
looked different, appearing as nightmarish masses of eldritch flesh. And in that brief moment, it almost looked to the nearby Seekers as if everything -from the walls to their allies to their very own bodies- were similarly constituted, not themselves as they thought they knew, but what they’d deluded themselves into thinking they weren’t. In an instant the vision passed, but something in Goldlewis and the others had been shaken. Their lungs constricted and their skin crawled as Stress began to mount.
“What in the goddamn hell!?” Goldlewis backdashed on impulse, then dropped his coffin to pull out the Skyfish. After such a horrific vision, a cleansing by fire felt only appropriate. Three of the copies were back to normal, but the imperfect one remained as it was, and the veteran loathed the sight of it, “Shut up and DIE!” he bellowed over the roar of his gun.
In the middle of the arena, Nadia and Roland had their own problems. The feral quickly saw the truth in Midna’s words as D unleashed a barrage of flame from the comfort of his chair. While Roland tried to fend off the fire magic, Nadia focused on evasion. Even if she could suffer Vaporize reactions any more, she wasn’t going to get burned as long as she had anything to say about it. Using Fluffy Soft on her lower half, she wove through the fiery fusillade on digitigrade tiger legs. Her focus was such that she scarcely noticed Sectonia’s magic rebounding off the Gravemind overhead, Roland on the back foot for that matter, or Juri circling around. As D brought down the storm of blood that forced Roland away, Nadia leaped in over the blood moat with only a few fresh crimson streaks sliced into her clothes and skin. “Blood
and fire?” she muttered, noting both D’s unusual combination of powers and the fact that she’d been separated from the others by the storm. Faced with D’s nonplussed stare, she flashed him a toothy grin. “To get that blood like that, you must really suck!”
D narrowed his eyes and thrust out his hand. Dozens of bats burst from the shadows within his cape and swarmed Nadia in an instant. For a moment she managed to hold her own with a wild flurry of claw swipes, but the second the feral started blocking it was over for her. The torrent of blockstun pushed her backward and into the blood moat with a splash. Without Massachusetts’ rigging around to buoy her up, she could do little but flounder until the bats subsided.
At that point, Juri rushed in from the side, her already-impressive speed amped way up by her allies. D turned his irate gaze her way, then cast his hand at the incoming assassin dismissively. A second salvo of bats fluttered forth, but Juri’s
headlong sprint low-profiled the squeaking vermin as she darted in, her revved-up ghoulsaw practically scraping the ground. With only a second to spare, D flicked his hand upward as if beckoning, and from within his cape a black-furred, red-eyed wolf lunged at Juri. Her sawblade carved it apart in D’s place, but the martial artist followed up just as quickly with a vicious sideswipe at his legs. Edward’s Searing Weapons left the wound ablaze as blood sprayed, adding insult to injury and eliciting an annoyed grunt from D. As Juri rushed along D turned the blood of wolf and Consul alike into a dozen crimson needles that shot after her.
Just as Juri disengaged, Roxas showed up to flank D with a surprise attack. While the Consul possessed a hardy constitution and did not need to fret over every last blow, his ego compelled him to demonstrate that his challengers attacks were futile–especially those from a snot-nosed brat. What followed was a heated but inconclusive exchange as the two evaded one another repeatedly. Though D’s experience and reflexes allowed him to snatch Roxas from the air, the count thought a soak in his blood storm was letting Roxas off lightly, considering that he’d been forced to rise to his feet already..
As Roxas sailed over the blood moat, Nadia burst from it, took aim with her newly-drawn pistols, and opened fire. D summoned another black wolf to hound her, but she dodged the beast with a sideways aerial cartwheel, shooting while upside-down. “Nya ha!” On landing, she twisted around to blast D with both guns at once, then dropped them and blitzed forward with an electric Charge. “Dis-zap-pear!” She appeared right in front of him and lashed out with a Fluffy Soft kick at D’s head, only for him to block with a nonchalantly raised arm. Sparks flew, but his guard barely budged. Still, even if it did no damage, a hit was a hit. Knowing his defense must be lowered, Nadia gritted her teeth and went with plan B. “Careful, I’m armed!” Pivoting away, she hyper-extended her arm like a spear straight for D’s face. Thanks to a lucky proc of Edward’s Sundering Strikes, she pierced his helmet’s armor and left his faceplate in shambles.
D’s reaction was explosive. “You
worm!” He lunged forward and seized Nadia by the throat. Only now that he stood could the Seekers see just how tall he was; Nadia’s Mantreads dangled several feet above the floor as she writhed in D’s grasp, and when he squeezed, his nails pierced into her neck. With his vision compromised, D wrenched off his helmet to reveal a
face as hard and colorless as stone, with a pointy mustache and beard, and long fangs bared in a scowl. He looked every inch the quintessential Transylvanian villain, and even Nadia knew the archetype.
“You…some kinda vampire?” Nadia garbled as she kicked her legs at him. “So…I guess that’s three Consuls, not two…I forgot to Count Dracula!”
With a thrash, she managed to boot D in the groin. His face tightened. “Witless woman,” he sneered. As he cast his magic, his blood rain dwindled. “Surrender yourself to me!”
Nadia’s eyes rolled back into her head, and D threw her down. She bounced off the ground with a sound more of surprise than pain, then rolled to a stop amidst the last of D’s blood storm. When she rose, though, the feral seemed to be in some sort of trance. “Ohhh…what a dreamboat~” she proclaimed drunkenly, turning around to face her team with her claws sharpened for battle.
Indifferent to the skirmish unfolding at the base of its trunk, the Gravemind centered its attention on Sectonia toward the end of her kritz-fueled chaos.
”PALLBEARER. SHALL I RELIEVE YOU OF YOUR LOAD?” It lifted up its two middle tentacles, fresh branches sprouting near their ends like bony fingers. They swiped through the air like nets trawling the sea to swat, snare, and pierce the queen. After a few moments, it stopped to shake off handfuls of
Deimos drones that took to the sky, shrieked like wild owls, and threw themselves toward various targets, prioritizing those in the air. After homing in they’d latch on, constrict, and emit a disruptive bioshock that would deactivate any ongoing abilities or buffs. As its drones filled the air, the Gravemind cackled through its countless bodies.
”MY TOMB RUNNETH OVER!”The next moment, Grimm’s firebats exploded against it, the three projectiles punctuated by a blast from his Grimmchild. Though the Gravemind lacked eyes, the Troupe Master could feel its heavy gaze upon him, and warped away to avoid a Deimos drone divebomb. By that time Ace had been whaling on the Gravemind’s trunk for a good ten or fifteen seconds, and that kind of punishment couldn’t be sustained indefinitely. The Gravemind arched backward until its head hung over the Cadet, then belted out a torrent of stomach acid followed by a
fused mass of corpses to tackle the hunter beneath its heavy weight..
O, meanwhile, was appalled at the Seekers’ reception to his latest exhibit. They not only floated above the muddy water, but shot, bit, and even poisoned his hungry hippos! As the bloat began to dwindle, his eyes widened with disbelief at the heroes biting and shooting them. “My hippos! Do you have ANY IDEA how much those cost!?” He groaned, then narrowed his eyes. “No matter. It’s not just hippos who call the wetlands home!” He did something, but it wasn’t clear what until two
Nile Crocodiles burst up from the water. Their huge jaws latched down onto two of the nearest Seekers -those being Bowser Jr, Rika, Blazermate, and Pit- with a bite force of almost four thousand pounds per square inch before the crocs dragged them down into the muck for a brutal death roll.
Of course, O was already busy with his next project. At the start of the battle, some of the less hot-headed Seekers had continued to stand their ground away from the brawls with D and A, trying to figure out the best way to assail the massive Gravemind and elusive O. Edelgard, Geralt, and Zenkichi had evaded the hippo and crocodile exhibit, and were fending off the Gravemind’s Deimos drones, but the Consul planned to tie up those loose ends. He speedily walled off an area around them with thorny hedges, then created a
pink-striped observation tower in the center, which also happened to be around the center of the whole battlefield. The carriage rose like a piston, then dropped. Even if those in the area inside managed to avoid getting crushed, they would still be endangered by an omnidirectional blast of shattered blue glass.
After releasing its drones, the Gravemind did not stay idle for long.
”THERE IS NO RESPITE IN MY GRAVE,” its forms chorused. Just after the hippo that Blazermate’s infected arose as a hideous undead monster to fight by the medabot’s side, the Guardian brought down its tentacles three times, one after another. The first massive limb fell across the middle of O’s wetland exhibit, separating it into halves. From its pitted flesh wriggled infection forms that scuttled toward the hippo zombie to bury themselves in its rotten hide and induct it into the Gravemind’s fold; if Blazermate wanted to keep hold of her newest minion, she would need to keep it flood-free. A second later, the next tentacle dropped down amidst Edward, Midna, Primrose, and Therion’s formation, the tremendous impact a much greater danger than the thinning mob of floodfested. Finally, the Gravemind aimed a third infested mass at the gang near the observation tower, its withering attack a surefire way to keep the three on their toes.
Before the Gravemind withdrew that third tentacle, though, Grimm leaped aboard. He scuttled down its putrid length at high speed, his fiery claws carving out handfuls of fused flesh on the way to leave a blazing trail in his wake. As the Guardian burned, so did Grimm, but the accompanying bursts of health offset his fresh wounds, and the Gravemind took notice.
”GRAVEROBBER, COME,” half-melted faces amidst the biomass groaned at the Troupe Master as he approached the Gravemind’s body, no matter how many he sliced apart.
”IN DEATH YOU WILL FIND LIFE.” The tentacle thrashed and Grimm flew through the air. A Deimos drone caught him on the fly, then zapped him. As he struggled, the Gravemind itself wheeled toward him for a massive headbutt, but Grimm escaped in a four-way blast of scarlet flame. He reappeared above the head, landed a corkscrew divekick, then leaped away to begin the game of cat and mouse anew.
”ACCEPT WHAT MUST BE.” the thousand voices rumbled.
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